Concealment (10 page)

‘Lack of operational experience.’

‘That one isn’t in the Pearson Malone lexicon yet—at the moment “the current economic climate” is the favourite excuse.’

‘Another familiar sounding phrase,’ he replied, smiling at the memory.

‘But this case must help you?’

‘Without a doubt. But it’s terrible, isn’t it? This poor girl is almost certainly dead and I can’t help thinking what a great opportunity it is for me.’

‘At least you’re being honest, though.’

There were plenty who’d claim they hadn’t given their promotion a second thought. Pearson Malone was stuffed to the gills with such altruistic liars.

The conversation flowed so naturally that when we hit choppy waters, he caught me off guard.

First my mother.

He casually mentioned how he’d been found abandoned as a baby and had no clue who his parents were. What a hideously personal disclosure for a first meeting, I thought—we weren’t even on a proper date. But all the same I admired him being so upfront.

‘Does it upset you?’

‘No, not at all—it frees me to be myself. Although it can get a bit freaky when doctors ask me for family medical history. I mean, suppose I have a horrible inherited illness that’s destined to catch up with me, or some mutant gene waiting to be triggered?’

‘I can’t see that’s worse than
knowing
some crazy genes are lurking in there somewhere.’

‘Why—do you have crazy genes?’ he asked, with a laugh.

I batted away his question with the vaguest allusion to my mother’s deficiencies. I’m sure he would have probed further, had an acquaintance of his not approached our table. The newcomer looked to be mid-forties, although his beard made it hard to be precise. He wore a classy leather jacket, Rolex watch and jeans too tight for incipient middle age.

‘Darren,’ Carmody said, standing up and shaking his companion’s hand with unnatural enthusiasm. ‘How the devil are you?’

‘Pretty good. And I see you’re at the forefront of the media these days—a bit more poised than on that course we attended.’

‘Can’t complain. What are you up to at the moment?’

‘Oh—this and that,’ Darren replied. His body language appeared defensive, as if he was keen to terminate the conversation.

‘Like what?’

‘A few different business ventures, but you don’t want to hear about that now. I can see you’re busy, so best leave you be—catch you around sometime.’

‘For sure.’

And before Carmody could even say goodbye, Darren was gone.

‘Who was he?’ I asked.

‘Someone I used to work with. I wonder what line he’s in now—he’s clearly prospering.’

Somehow I doubted if he would ever find out.

The distraction had allowed the discussion about my mother to be conveniently dropped, but the topic that replaced it proved to be even trickier.

‘Isabelle’s boyfriend, Ryan Kelly, he’s your ex-husband’s brother isn’t he?’

‘You’re well informed.’

The first pinprick of discomfort punctured my positive mood.

‘What’s he like?’

It was a difficult question in view of recent developments. I attempted to respond as I would have done a week before.

‘Who—Ryan? He’s cheeky, easy-going—bit of a buffoon. Youngest boy in a large family—spoilt—idolises his eldest brother, my ex.’

‘Pretty much what we’ve heard,’ said Carmody, without revealing his sources. ‘Are you particularly close to him?’

I tensed. What had prompted him to ask?

‘Not particularly.’

‘But you wouldn’t say he has an unpleasant streak to him?’

‘I wouldn’t say so—no,’ I replied, choosing my words with care.

‘I don’t suppose you could tell me where he is?’

‘Why? Don’t you know?’

‘No.’

My niggling doubts gathered pace.

‘I’m sorry. I wish I could help you—I’ve been searching for him myself to set up a meeting with HR.’

‘Firing him, are you?’ said Carmody, instantly grasping the point.

My cheeks flushed.

‘I don’t agree with it,’ I explained hurriedly. ‘But they’re jumpy as hell in case he’s implicated.’

‘And in your opinion, is he implicated?’

Before last Friday, I’d have defended him without question, but now I paused before answering.

‘I would have said not. Anyway, why are you asking me? You just told everyone he wasn’t a suspect.’

He appraised me with those cold grey eyes, evaluating my judiciously worded responses.

‘As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to share my thoughts with the press at this stage, but we’re rapidly rethinking our views on Ryan.’

‘Oh.’

Bugger—that changed everything. And why was he sharing that information with me?

‘Tell me—do you work on a client called JJ Resources?’

‘Yes,’ I said, bewildered by the apparent switch in subject.

‘And recently you had a glitch on the account?’

‘Yes, but nothing serious.’

‘Not a fraud?’

‘No—absolutely not.’

Only now did I cotton on. This was no friendly drink or quasi date, but an opportunity for Carmody to pump me for information. Ryan had told them about Isabelle’s phone calls, perhaps in an attempt to deflect attention from himself. Now Carmody was cross-checking with me. But fraud? How had that idea popped into Ryan’s head since last Friday?

I drained the last of my wine, bitterly regretting my earlier caginess with the detective sergeant. I’d answered his questions—no more and no less—in retrospect, a breathtakingly idiotic tactic. He may even have picked up on my shiftiness and mentioned it to Carmody, giving him another reason to quiz me.

‘There’s something I ought to have mentioned earlier,’ I began, bowing to the inevitable.

‘What?’

A torrent of words gushed out from my mouth, words having no connection with the thoughts swirling round inside my mind. Carmody listened, poker-faced, having dropped any social pretence for the meeting with indecent haste.

I left nothing out, apart from the bruising, not because it painted Ryan in a bad light, but because it defined me as a victim.

‘Why didn’t you tell DS Holland this?’ asked Carmody, perplexed.

‘Um, I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘He didn’t ask. It is rather embarrassing and it didn’t seem relevant.’

‘But it’s relevant now you know Mr Kelly is a suspect, isn’t it?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose it you could say it’s now germane to the enquiry.’

‘It always was,’ Carmody replied.

‘I see that now—I’m sorry.’

‘Would you be prepared to come into the station tomorrow to make a formal statement?’

‘Sure. What time?’

‘Say one pm?’

‘OK.’

I glanced at my watch—nine-ten pm.

‘I must go,’ I said. ‘Thank you for the wine, and it’s been nice chatting to you.’

‘Likewise,’ said Carmody, in a lukewarm tone.

I rushed out of Daly’s towards the Tube station. Only the knowledge I’d done the right thing, if rather late in the day, saved me from complete humiliation.

Yet in a curious way it had come as a relief to discover Carmody had no romantic agenda. It would have been like Greg revisited, the constant building pressure to explain, the stress of hoping he didn’t spot my weirdness, of masquerading as someone else. It was tough enough to sustain a convincing front throughout the working day, but keeping up the pretence twenty-four-seven was impossible.

As I reached The Strand I heard footsteps behind me. There was no logical reason for anxiety, but I quickened my pace. My pursuer speeded up too.

I glanced behind me.

***

‘Bloody hell—Ryan—you nearly frightened me to death, jumping out at me like that. Where did you spring from anyway?’

Fact was, I didn’t feel much calmer now I knew who’d been in pursuit.

‘I was in the coffee shop next door to Daly’s waiting for you to come out.’

His breath stank of something much stronger than coffee and his voice held a threatening undertone.

‘You were following me?’

‘Need to talk to you.’

‘No —
I
need to talk to
you
— I’ve been trying to get hold of you, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Who’d want to answer those shit-formal messages CCD in to HR? I’m not dumb—it’s obvious you want to fire me.’

‘But where the hell have you been?’

‘What did you tell him?’ Ryan demanded, not answering my question.

I was wary of hanging around on the street. Carmody would be out of Daly’s as soon as he’d paid the bill and would surely see us together.

‘If we can go and sit down somewhere I’ll explain. You hungry?’

‘Not much, but I guess I should eat.’

With a sense of purpose, I steered him in the direction of Pizza Express.

Once inside, Ryan scanned the restaurant nervously, as if anxious about being recognised. But everyone was far too wrapped up in the minutiae of their own lives.

‘What did you say to Carmody?’ he asked again, after we’d ordered pizza and beer.

‘The truth—everything.’

His face fell.

‘Oh great. So I’ve just been caught out in another lie, when they’re gunning for me anyway. Can’t you see how disastrous that is for me?’

‘But surely it helps you, it’s an alibi.’

‘I don’t need a bloody alibi, because I didn’t do anything. This is a total nightmare. My girlfriend’s dead, which is bad enough. I can’t go home because the place is crawling with forensics experts and every bloody TV station from Sky News to Al Jazeera. The media have condemned me, judge, jury and executioner. Her parents think the worst—they never liked me anyway. Hell—even my own family suspect me.’

‘There’s no proof that she’s dead,’ I reminded him.

‘So you keep saying.’

Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he wiped them away with his sleeve, without regard for appearance.

‘Everyone’s got it in for me,’ he sobbed. ‘Whatever I do proves I’m guilty. I didn’t cry at the press conference—I didn’t look the family in the eye. Ha—he’s dodgy—he did it. And if I had cried, they would have called them crocodile tears—wrong either way. How do you think I feel?’

‘Dreadful.’

‘Do you honestly believe I would harm a living soul?’

A week ago I’d have answered no without hesitation—but my yellowing bruises told a different story.

‘Got to say, you were a bit rough with me the other night.’

‘Jesus Christ, will you shut up about that,’ he shouted, banging his fist on the table. ‘It meant nothing—OK? I wouldn’t have done it with you if I’d known it was such a biggie for you. When you came onto me like that, I thought there must be a different guy in your knickers every night.’

‘You came on to me, and remember, I tried to stop you.’

‘Nah—you were up for it. You
said
no, but you were gagging for it—a guy can tell. And now you’re guilty because you were so dirty, and that’s where all this is coming from. Fair enough, we shouldn’t have done it, but we did, and we can’t change the past.’

And nor could we change his perception of it.

‘So you say you were caught out in a lie,’ I said, keen to switch subject.

‘Bloody Greg. You’d expect your own brother to cover for you, wouldn’t you? He could easily have told them that I spent all night Friday with him.’

‘But it wouldn’t have been true.’

‘Who would have known any different? I had to change my story because of him.’

‘To what? Apparently not the truth.’

‘I told them I slept in the car overnight.’

‘It was crazy to lie again. Why didn’t you just tell them you stayed with me?’

‘I don’t want Greg to find out.’

‘Neither do I. Believe me, I don’t want
anyone
to know.’

‘I guess it would have been easier to come clean in the first place,’ he admitted, as our beers arrived. ‘Now they think I’m covering up something terrible, and there’s no way out.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I said, slurping at my beer as though it was the first drink of the evening. ‘If you go to the police now and tell the truth, everything will be fine. You can say I asked you to lie to save my reputation, if you like.’

I omitted to mention what Carmody had told me about Ryan being a suspect—I sensed it might have tipped him over the edge. But I honestly did believe he could still put everything right.

‘Seems to me like no one cares what’s true and what isn’t,’ he said gloomily.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I’m convinced whatever happened to Issy is connected with JJ—those phone calls. I did tell them, but they’re not interested. That’s what I need to discuss with you.’

‘There’s nothing worth discussing. Like I said before, the business with the tax losses wasn’t important.’

And in any case how could it be linked with Isabelle’s disappearance? If indeed she knew of Goodchild’s mistake, she’d already demonstrated she had no plans to disclose it. She posed no threat to anyone.

‘But I’ve been thinking about the rest of it—the stuff I couldn’t quite hear. There were lots of calls, and I’m sure Issy mentioned some kind of dodgy business at the slate mine, something about debtors. I’m thinking maybe she found something and that’s why they killed her.’

Now Carmody’s line of questioning made sense, but Ryan’s story sounded weak and implausible. An affair between Isabelle and Smithies seemed a much more reasonable explanation for the secret calls.

‘You didn’t say anything about this on Friday.’

‘I’d forgotten. But I’ve been racking my brains since Issy disappeared and it kind of came back to me.’

‘If Issy had suspicions, why didn’t she speak to me about them?’

‘Perhaps she didn’t trust you,’ said Ryan sharply.

‘So why didn’t she tell you?’ I retorted.

‘You reckon I’m making this up, don’t you?’ he said as the pizza arrived.

‘Frankly, yes.’

‘But suppose I’m right?’

‘Then it’ll emerge in the investigation.’

‘That’s just where you’re wrong, because no one gives a shit.’

‘Have you spoken to Greg?’

Greg was, after all, advising on the disposal of JJ.

‘He’s the least interested out of anyone. The last few years have been tough for mergers and acquisitions. He’s maxed out on his borrowings to buy his new fancy house and they’re shedding Corporate Finance partners like there’s no tomorrow. He
needs
the Megabuilders deal to go ahead.’